


Kaleidoscope Downtown

by guileheroine



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Birthday, Established Relationship, F/F, Flowers, Shopping, and other tame things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2016-05-31
Packaged: 2018-07-11 09:42:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7042957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guileheroine/pseuds/guileheroine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra and Asami have a fine day out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kaleidoscope Downtown

Sunlight, somewhere - behind the curtain of her eyelid or her consciousness, and a rising, resonant note that slithers unwelcome between her shoulder blades.

 

Korra’s first instinct is to yell at the warbling voice that wakes her to shut up and let her sleep, until she realizes that the voice won’t hear her, it belongs to a record, and that the record belongs to Asami, who must be here and up and waiting.

 

So what she does shout through the door is “Five minutes!” before dragging herself quickly and painfully out of bed and into the bathroom.

 

Five minutes later, in the light of the floor-length window of her main room, Asami looks the opposite of how Korra feels. Fresh and alert, with the sun flaring her a backlight; pulling up the sleeves of her loose nightshirt as she carefully makes to lift the lid of a brown paper box on the counter.

 

“You know, if you really wanted to wake me,” says Korra with a gravel voice as she scratches her arm in the doorway. “...You could play something a little more… dynamic.”

 

Asami shrugs, raising a challenging eyebrow, and her eyes are so full with that state of sentience too eager for the hour that they practically protrude into Korra when she looks up. “You’re up, aren't you?”

 

“Mm, not awake,” Korra groans, letting her own eyes fall shut against the vigour of Asami's wakefulness. “This isn’t morning music, and I can't look at you right now.”

 

Asami shakes her head, giving her another pointed look, a whatever-you-say- _ Avatar _ look, before turning her attention back to the counter. “Look what Ikki and Meelo brought me yesterday!” She says, perfectly harmonious with the melody emanating from the phonograph, bauble eyes shining at Korra as she gestures to the box. “Pema’s fried dough balls, the sweet ones with the raw sugar.”

 

“Your favourite, right?” Korra says, skipping forward with a curious glance into the box from its other side. She recognises Jinora’s loopy writing on the top:  _ dearest Asami, love from Jinora Ikki Meelo Rohan Pema Tenzin _ , all in a neat, teetering column, with a small moonflower tied through a gap in the hinge.

 

Asami nods, lifts a dough ball delicately out and takes a bite, before feeding Korra the rest over the counter. The quick exchange is enough to draw Korra a little further to earth at this very early hour. She smiles, deliberately slow, as she licks the sugar from her lips and watches Asami’s own (still an easier sight than her eyes.) “Thank you. Happy birthday.”

 

In response Asami's expands with warmth. She grins brilliantly and says, “Come here, Korra”; meaning her side of the counter, presumably so she can smother her.

 

As a matter of fact, Asami’s birthday had been yesterday. But she worked all day, meetings too important to slyly delegate (not that she would have if they hadn't been); although as she tells Korra later, plenty of her closer staff - and a detectived-out Mako - had been happy to join her at the bar afterwards. And Korra hadn’t gotten in from her week-long expedition to the northern Earth Republic until Asami went to bed. Asami was out by the time she snuck in.

 

“I missed you!” Asami says once she has her hands on her; no pretense, the same rather fulsome and sweet way her voice carries the words every time. She holds her tight for a moment, before Korra draws back so she can kiss her, cheek and lips, and lips again. The kisses roll off her mouth, and Asami smells clean like morning. She places her hand over Asami’s shoulder, and then snug around it, coiling it in the still-damp hair at the base of her neck - the nearness invigorates Korra at last, pounds a giddy little beat in her chest. Then Asami interrupts -

 

“How was the… operation?”

 

Korra pauses for a second before explaining. It’s an unenticing leap from kisses to that, and it takes a moment to make it. “There were raids on a series of villages,” she says. “Pillagers. We took care of them, though. Nothing that serious, I made sure - I don’t really wanna think about it anymore.”  

 

Asami kisses her again, punctuating end of discussion.

 

“Coffee?” Korra pulls back, breathing in the hint of it the widening space between them.

 

Asami tilts her head up in recognition, releasing her immediately. “Oh, right, I made coffee.” Korra hops onto the worktop, the nearest surface on which she might brace herself, as Asami reaches around her to fetch another mug from the cupboard. It feels nice, having her hover around her.

 

The warmth of the liquid loosens Korra back to a sleepy state, at least for the moment (counterintuitive, she thinks dryly.) Meanwhile Asami talks away, already thoroughly energised - no exquisitely strung sentences, just a train of thought that Korra basks in, content to be privy to the sound of her voice after a long week even where she doesn’t follow all the words.

 

“Oh, you know what I found yesterday? I thought I’d tidy up - a gift to myself,” Asami is saying with a wry gleam in her eyes. “The drafts for those hummingbird mecha suits. They’re very, uh, hasty renderings - precise, of course, but oh, man, I’d forgotten how much pressure we were under… I really liked those, though...” She looks a little sad, sounding oddly apologetic even though the sadness is her own.

 

“Well, they were a wicked smart idea,” Korra says behind her mug.  

 

Asami’s mouth twists. “I know it was a desperate situation, and I obviously didn’t have fun using them - but I was proud of the design. It’s amazing what you can pluck right out of nature, and I’m not just talking about dragonfly hummingbirds, even though they might be my favourite…”

 

She stops with a little huff, blinking into Korra before extending a shapely hand out to grasp her chin. “Breakfast?”

 

“Please,” says Korra warmly, removing Asami's hand from her face. She watches her produce a half a pan of hot, fluffy omelette from the grill. “And what afterwards? Today’s for you.”

 

Asami piles omelette, an asparagus salad and more dough balls onto a plate for her, and purses her lips around sugary fingertips before answering. “It’s not exciting, I know,” she says, “but I wanted to go shopping. Out of necessity more than anything, but we can make a day of it.”

 

Korra has to make a show of rolling her eyes. It's her favourite affectation, this one. “This is what I came back for?”

 

Asami laughs immediately, having anticipated the response, and shakes her head. “Knock it off! I know you never mean that.” She pulls some greens off Korra’s plate, continuing: “That’s what I want, okay? For you to come shopping with me today.”

 

Sure enough, not half an hour later, Republic City is rolling by behind them. Asami takes a lull in the traffic to comb a hand through her hair, roots to ends, perfectly nonchalant: an old, old tendency that nonetheless reproduces itself every once in a while and transports Korra to the earliest of days, of noticing that (for whatever reason) it was hard not to look at her.

 

“So we’re really doing this?”

 

Korra shifts in the passenger seat, semi-sideways, an arm slinging across her headrest.

 

Asami blinks at her, smaller in her own seat, both hands gripping the steering wheel. “Yes! Of course we are! It’s for my birthday,” she arches an eyebrow, almost pleadingly. “But I promise you’ll enjoy it.” She embellishes it with a belated smile.

 

Korra reaches over and touches her shoulder briefly. “I never said I wouldn’t.”

 

“That you didn’t,” Asami replies with a deliberate foot on the gas, now that she’s left the busy toll booth that marks the end of the Silk Road Bridge behind - the resultant surge immediately bringing the wind in her hair and all her usual flair back. Korra grins and busies herself with the radio. Her finger on the button clicks forward mechanically, not allowing more than a second of each station to play, until Asami makes the vaguely impatient sound Korra has been waiting for.

 

“Are you searching for something in particular?” She asks pointedly.

 

“No,” Korra admits happily, watching for Asami's reluctant smile.

 

“Then why don’t you just sing for me?” Asami leans back, a couple of gentle blinks making her expression lazy, and all too captivating.

 

“What if you fall asleep?” Korra wreathes her voice in mock concern, and it earns her a lovely laugh.

 

The grime of the dense, winding streets eventually peels away to upmarket city houses verged by greenery, and then the green gives way to rows of glitzy, high-end shops and offices. Korra absorbs the splashy ads plastered on brightly-painted shopfronts, and the elegant lettering on showroom placards; young women wearing young trends as they dash around the odd street vendor in both gaggles and quiet pairs - and, where the veneer cracks - a haggle playing out in increasingly, ferociously indignant gesticulations. In reality, this area of downtown doesn’t fare much better at the hands of racketeers and underground syndicates than any of the others, but it does a stellar job of whitewashing. Asami parks on the corner of Harmony Plaza, so named for the nearby tower.

 

Korra climbs out of the car as a soon as it stops. “So is there anything specific we should be looking for?” She probes. “Do you have a list?”

 

Asami rolls her eyes as she slips her keys into the pocket of her dress. “Well, not really. Would you rather I did and we just got this over with?” She loops her arm through Korra’s, eyes sparkling, stripping the jibe of any edge. “Let’s walk.”

 

“You know, in the Southern Water Tribe, a day out usually consists of more, uh, adventure,” Korra continues, unrelenting, twisting her arm so that Asami’s leading.

 

“Yeah, but we’re in a  _ metropolis _ , Korra,” Asami insists, gesturing around with her free arm. Her bracelet, watch and hair all glint simultaneously in the sunshine; it feels like Korra’s holding onto something a bit magical. “And this is an adventure,” she adds with a pout.

 

“Alright,” Korra concurs, as if she hadn’t an hour ago. “As long as we can give the Little Ba Sing Se Fashion Mall a pass.” She arches her brow and Asami widens her eyes at the reference, nodding immediately. They’ve heard enough horror stories about Earth Kingdom loyalists (that is, royalists) languishing in the miniature Upper Ring, even so long after their former prince had apparently found himself better.

 

Asami wrinkles her nose cutely. “Anyway, that place is more like a…”

 

“Theme park?” Korra pulls her by the forearm, giving somebody’s haughty-looking cat deer a wide berth.

 

“Exactly,” says Asami.

 

They move a while through the crowd - thin, thanks to the hour, but thickening by the minute - following the course of sunlit street contained by the shadows of awnings and shop signs on either side. Sometimes men and women under hats take double, but being adults in the right part of town, they continue on their way - it’s a kid here and there that marvels (or demands), “Are you the Avatar, miss?” (“No,” Korra says, incredulous, but her smile is all the answer they need, and usually enough to have them skipping off in a buzz.)

 

Eventually, they duck into a boutique, and exactly the kind Korra would expect Asami to duck eagerly into. Silvery drapes frame multiple large mirrors fixed on the walls, creating the illusion of capaciousness in the compact, neat space. “I need new shirts,” Asami explains, looking around before striding over to the section that catches her eye.

 

“Since you keep heading to the workshop in your good clothes?” Korra says, rifling through a line of crisp, creamy blouses.

 

Asami looks duly embarrassed, glancing up from the collar stitch she appears to be examining. “Not on purpose.” Which, of course not - Asami was meticulous in every endeavour - but sometimes all you can really bear to do between desk meetings and messy shop hours is pull hair back and gloves on.

 

“What do you think of this?” Asami says, a couple of densely packed rows of clothes hangers later. Korra looks at the top she’s holding up: an incredibly pretty periwinkle, tasteful and comfy-looking with a close scooped neck.

 

“Well, it’s not what I’d have expected you to go for,” she acknowledges, folding the shirt in her own hand back, “but, hey, it’s beautiful and so are you, so...!”

 

“Not -” Asami begins, slightly red, extending the hanger to Korra. “Not for me - for you.”

 

“Oh,” Korra says. That puts a self-satisfied smirk on Asami’s face, which she doesn’t deign to wipe off as she produces another item of clothing from the display behind her. “And for myself, I really like this.” She holds her second hanger up, awaiting Korra’s assessment.

 

“That’s not a shirt, Asami.” Korra’s tone is chiding as she takes in the mauvish sheath dress, though she grants her approval anyway. “But try this,” she offers, picking out a blouse; another purple (as most things in this shop seem to be), but paler, with a stylish cinch at the elbow-length sleeve.

 

Asami’s eyes light up and she receives it immediately for a closer look. “You’re right, that is nice.”

 

Soon, the sun draws them out into the street again. Korra counts five more shops that they make it into (mostly splendid but modestly sized like the first, with some larger or stranger, planted more or less in a streets-long succession) - though they rack up coats and boots and shirts (some to share) many more than that number between them.

 

Eventually, they find themselves on a bench under the shade of a sensibly city-small linden tree, somewhere before the turn of ten, just as the crowd truly begins to grow. There Asami smooths her hands out in her lap and comments, with a quirk of her mouth, “It’s a little early in the morning to splash out, isn’t it?”

 

“Never stopped you.” Korra crosses her legs onto the warm wood, making herself at home even roadside in the centre of town. Asami laughs and a fallen leaf in her hair shakes loose. The inimitable hybrid scent of baking and brewing draws Korra’s attention to the cafe opposite their resting stop, and she wonders for a short second about stepping in for a while before realising that no, she can’t well concede weariness yet, when it’s not even midday.

 

Instead she gives her hand to Asami, who looks perfectly content not to take it.

 

“Don’t tell me you’re already losing steam!” Korra teases, hefting up an armful of shopping bag with ease.

 

Asami gives her a look that indicates not even, standing in a purposeful motion. It makes Korra smile. “Where next, birthday girl?”

 

For a moment Asami’s eyes flicker upwards in thought, lips pursing. Korra takes the opportunity to smooth over the lapel of her dress, brushing another of the sweet-smelling linden leaves off. Asami’s expression sets with resolution as she peers behind Korra, beyond the coffee shop.

 

“The art store over there,” she says, cocking her head in that direction, “by the gallery. You remember Varrick’s new assistant, Shen?”

 

“The one courting your cute receptionist?” Korra replies after a second of combing of her brain. Since his marriage to Zhu Li, Varrick had had, and continued to have, a veritable parade of new assistants - never managing not to rankle one or two into an early discharge every quarter, or so it seemed. No one could be blamed for struggling to recall who was currently in the line of fire.

 

“Right, he’s with Hoshiko,” Asami giggles, as they cross the street and bypass the cafe chock full of young, well-to-do patrons under the spell of caffeine (and hopefully nothing else at this hour.) “Actually, that’s why I saw him - when I was leaving work yesterday. He told me that Varrick’s sending prints of his movers to shop… so people can see them again.” She says this last part with a kind of confused distaste.

 

“What, like at a revival house?” Korra asks curiously, and then grimaces. “Though I’m not sure any of those masterpieces need to be revived.”

 

“Not quite,” says Asami. The breeze swirls a strand of her hair against her mouth, and after an inelegant struggle to blow it away with her hands full of shopping, she continues. “He wants people to take them home and play them there. I mean, you’d need a projector. He’s calling for a ‘home-mover revolution.’” She flares her nostrils for the words, a note of cautious intrigue in her voice. “I figure we should check it out.”

 

Sure enough, the store they enter boasts a whole glittery stall dedicated to brand new copies of  _ The Adventures of Nuktuk: Hero of the South _ ,  _ The South Strikes Back _ , and so on - even specially animated runs of  _ The Animal Adventures of Roh-Tan and Juji _ for the school-age, who are really all that's left of the market now. In a closed cabinet in the corner live the expensive film projectors one would need to play the prints. Even the shop’s usual collection of posters, and the commercial art reproductions increasingly gaining popularity in the United Republic, are dominated by signed, glossed, framed Nuktuk posters.

 

“Well -” begins Asami, struck more amused than dumb by the ostentatious display. “I’m impressed Bolin managed to keep this from us.” The words are right out of Korra’s mouth.

 

They give Varrick’s efforts a minute or two, if only for the absurdity of it all.

 

“It’s a vanity project,” Asami insists, all tittery, “he  _ knows  _ only a handful of kids are going to be able to afford the tech required for these ‘home-movers’ to take off.”

 

“His whole life is a vanity project,” says Korra, struggling to keep the smile off her face as she lifts up a small stuffed Nuktuk-head and torso, vest and all, with a cottony heart-shape nestled between the furs. “You want this?”

 

“No, thank you,” Asami grins, laughter making her voice syrupy. Then Korra watches an idea click into place in her eyes, a familiar, wonderfully beloved image. “We’re getting it, though…”

 

“For Opal!” Korra finishes the thought.

 

In the end they leave with more than the toy, though: a new record, Korra’s choice, ‘morning music’; and an arresting original landscape of sunset over Yue Bay, for Asami’s bedroom (even if Korra did spend more hours asleep in it.)

 

Outside the weather becomes heavy - the kind that makes your skull beat if you don’t find shade quick enough. So they slip into the next shop that looks like it might entertain for a while.

 

The Emperor’s Emporium is a treasure trove; a deceptively dingy anterior giving way to a vast and vivid collection of not only the classical Fire Nation fashion and memorabilia implied by its name, but odds and ends from every corner of the world. A melange of clothing, antiques, peeling books and knick-knacks without count piles high in shelves and hooks far above Korra’s head. It’s immediately apparent that this extensive hoard is not particularly organised, but naturally that only adds to its cluttered, hide-and-seek appeal. 

 

Korra swipes aside a heavy curtain to reveal an ancient-looking map of Yu Dao, the oldest of the colonies that preceded the United Republic. Stacked in flimsy frames below it are similar charts. Korra takes her time tracing through an early hand drawn map of Republic City, marveling at how neat and simple the turns are compared to the sprawling mess of metro today.  

 

She’s interrupted when Asami calls her over to a section with a heavy cursive  _ exclusive! history for sale  _ sign over it (though as far as Korra can see, everything in this room is exclusive.) There’s a quizzical expression on Asami's face as she examines a pair of thin-woven gloves with red ribbon ties around each wrist. “That gentleman,” she tells Korra conspiratorially, gesturing to the back of the storekeeper, who’s in conversation with another customer, “says these gloves belonged to Avatar Yangchen herself, and she handed them off to a girl she rescued from an avalanche up north whose family ended up here. Can you verify?”

 

“Hm...” Korra pulls the gloves on, each one with purpose, and looks up in a show of thought. “Let’s say… yes,” she decides seriously, before cracking a grin. “Because I have no idea, and that’s cooler.”

 

“You're incredible,” Asami deadpans, snatching the gloves back, though she can’t help the glint in her eyes as she turns away.

 

Korra stays with the exclusive history for sale for a moment, rifling through bending scrolls that almost come away at her touch, although whether they really are ancient, merely shopworn or an acute combination of both she can’t tell. What she does take away a good fifteen minutes later is something Asami would definitely laugh at: not a scroll but a towel - displaying waterbending forms handiest in the kitchen. 

 

A few paces over, there are the small trinkets, handiworks that Asami would covet - pocket-size photo frames of vibrant agate bent to last; and candles in metal casings with swirling waves and cityscapes intricate as shadow puppets carved finely up along the rim, such that the flame would cast shapes out of them - quintessential Fire Nation craft. In a mounted case above these sit bits of metal that would definitely intrigue Asami: gold and silver from the earliest Earth Kingdom mines along the continent’s western coast - long-defunct, as the adjacent sign denotes - some fashioned into proper pieces and some in natural nuggets.

 

Korra discreetly takes two of the latter with her towel (one silver, one gold), tucking them away in it once she makes the purchase.

 

The Emperor’s Emporium devours time like a vortex, and the second they leave hunger crashes into Korra. But at Asami’s behest they skip the first few eateries they encounter, aiming for an old favourite across the street from expansive, sunny Avatar Korra Park.

 

They take iced teas to-go and a paper bag of peanut butter buns, and perch on the edge of one of the park’s many quaint wood bridges. It’s as busy as Korra would expect on a beautiful weekend - people of all walks claiming their periodic escape from the small spaces of a big city - but it’s not impossible to find a spot that’s more or less vacant, thanks to a proliferation of wispy spirit vines coiled around a fountain, and the bustle of little spirits weaving in and out of them. (“I’m glad nobody wants to disturb them!” Asami says with feeling, totally, kissably earnest.)

 

“She’s overshadowing me,” Korra pouts, drawing Asami’s attention away from the fountain before them and to the towering statue in the distance.

 

Asami laughs. “Shh, no she’s not. When does anyone ever do that?” She brushes breadcrumbs out of her lap before twisting to lean her head against Korra’s shoulder, giving a gentle, lazy kick designed to make their dangling feet collide. “You’re still my favourite, for what it’s worth, and I like  _ her  _ a lot.”

 

“Well…” Korra concedes, eyes trained on her statue. “I guess I like her hair.” Asami emits a brief sound that resides casually between acknowledgement and agreement, and a smile inches slowly over Korra’s face. “Oh, and her arms,” she adds conversationally, curling her foot around Asami’s. “She’s pretty cute, actually. Nice chest, too -”

 

Asami kicks her with more purpose this time, retracting and crossing her arms with her tongue between her teeth. “Just let me pay you a compliment, Korra!” She laughs an exhale and clasps her arms around Korra’s waist again. “Not that I’m disputing your assessment.” She laughs again, a surge in tandem with the breeze, and the combination makes Korra flutter. She unlatches Asami’s hands so she can lift one and kiss it. The afternoon sun and Asami’s weight make her feel heavy.

 

“Naga would have loved to be out today. I wish she were here,” Korra says, watching some girl's deer dog chase her around a clearing.

 

Asami’s still. “Yeah. But she would have hogged you. As she has every right to.”

 

“So you want me all to yourself, huh?” Korra needles, renewing her grip over Asami’s wrist. Asami bites back the smile that says she refuses to be embarrassed, and inhales to reply when Korra steals  _ well, it’s my birthday _ off her lips, pressing, and then breathing a premature breath (her breath) from the clumsiness of the angle.

 

Asami sits up straight with hands firm around the waist again and takes her breath back from Korra.  

 

Then she smiles. “I’m going to fall asleep if we don’t start moving soon,” she says, looking at the paper bag in her fist as she crumples it.

 

She pulls Korra up by the hand and leads her down the short distance to the end of the bridge so they can walk alongside the pond under it. A confused spirit, apparently unaware that it’s inhabiting a structure filled with water, rushes down from the fountain and onto the bank of the pond for a drink. It stops mid-scuttle to eye up the baby turtleduck that it finds there. The spirit blinks stupidly for a moment, and then, having reached some silent understanding, hops onto the turtleduck’s back, producing a strange, if charming, sight.

 

“Oh, it probably can’t swim,” Asami says, watching the pair paddle across the water. Two more baby ducks replace them on the bank.

 

“Isn’t that sweet?” Korra sighs, bending a gentle gust to help the first turtleduck along. Asami crouches and empties her paper bag into a cupped hand, extending the crumbs to the pair on the bank. Her eyes absorb the little stretch of water as the ducks feed: the placid mother a few metres away, serenely floating with the remainder of her bunch, and the smattering of late summer flowers on the water’s edge; tall fire cardinals and jewelweed as shiny as any real gem.

 

Asami turns to look up at Korra in a motion that makes her hair bounce mesmerizingly. “We should get some flowers!”

 

And so their next stop is the flower stall that parks on the corner of the park all summer - it doesn’t have a name other than ‘Madame Juchi’s flower stall’, but it carries the reputation of the finest retailers in town.

 

“That one’s for beauty,” says Juchi, bangles clinking as she feathers the extravagant-looking flower with large, flat petals in pink and white stripes in Korra’s hand.

 

“They’re all for beauty,” Asami scoffs, the note of her voice utterly harmless, though Korra can tell it’s a genuine niggle. (She’s right, of course.)

 

Juchi waggles her eyebrows. “It’s also love.”

 

“Right, love and beauty,” Asami amends. “They’re all love and beauty.”

 

The old woman’s eyes gleam and she wants to play along. “Well, there are certainly variations on the theme. This one, for example -” she indicates a bright orange flower, cradling the bloom under its long curling petals “- is  _ coquetry. _ ”

 

“Excellent,” Korra replies without a beat, a sly grin peeking from under the bouquet she has her nose in, “that’s Asami right there.”

 

Asami turns pink as the love and beauty flower and nudges Korra’s shoulder; but the flowers evidently have her mind, and she lets Madame Juchi take her through each vivid row of them, meaning by arbitrary, mystical meaning. Meanwhile Korra scans the other side of the display (it’s large enough to qualify as a flower museum of sorts, she thinks) and finds that she can recognize more of them than she thought. There’s even her longtime favourite: a many-petaled flower from Air Temple Island, one of the brightest she’s ever encountered - blooms in golden yellow, white, red and pink.

 

In the end Asami picks a waxy flower of a blushing white that seeps into yellow at the centre (“for protection, good for ringing in your next year”); with a complementary small pink blossom ( _ spiritual _ beauty, she’ll take that) to fill out the bouquet.

 

She transfers the flowers into a suitable pack after sticking one of the pink blossoms in Korra’s hair. Her hands are full with the day’s yield, particularly with delicate flowers in the mix, but their walk back to the car is rather long from here.

 

“Let’s sit at the dock for a minute,” Asami says. “My feet are aching.”

 

The dock (the one for tourists and mindful repose) isn’t far - a short walk out of the main road and along the waterfront. They place their bags in a pile and sit perpendicular to the pier, watching gentle waves foam at the lip of the embankment.

 

There’s still a way to twilight, but the sun is low enough to cast itself splendidly through the clouds, winking on the water. It’s the regular Republic City occurrence that makes Korra glad to still live with the sea, lack of perennial snow notwithstanding. She tells Asami as much and Asami takes her hand, golden in the light.

 

“I'm glad you’re here, that you made it your home. Because I would never want to leave Republic City.”

 

The bay glitters gold again, stirring Korra’s mind.

 

“I wanna show you something,” she says suddenly, releasing Asami’s hand to reach for her bags. She returns with the two metal pieces from the emporium enclosed in her palms, and holds up the gold between them.

 

“This is from the Red Hill Mine,” she tells Asami, watching her eyes light up in recognition and curiosity, mouth in a little ‘wow.’ “ _ Old _ , right? Amazing how this stuff lasts,” Korra smiles. “I thought you’d like it.”

 

She puts the silver in her sticky palm down for a moment, holding the gold nugget between two sets of precise, anticipatory fingers. Then with practised effort, she bends, separating the piece into two smaller ones that she curls into hooks above a curved, faceted body, fine little wings molding out of a thorax.

 

“Your dragonfly hummingbirds,” she says, placing a pair of earrings into Asami’s palm.

 

Asami blinks into her hand for a moment, into the play of light over lines of scale detail as thin as silk thread, and then turns to Korra, breaking into a stunned (stunning) smile. “You got really good at that! Korra...” She breathes, immediately moving to the hair tie on her wrist, dropping two little dragonfly hummingbirds into her lap so she can pull her hair up and put them on.

 

“They’re so cute! So beautiful.” She laughs, running a thumb over the tiny contours in the left one before she hooks it in.

 

“They’re a little smaller than the actual creature,” Korra says, as Asami beams at her. “But I don’t think you want life-size insects on your ears.”  

 

Her fingers close over the silver and she brings it to Asami’s attention. “Now, I’m not sure where exactly this comes from. But it’s somewhere along that stretch on the southeastern coast. You know where they opened, like, five mines at once, as soon as they realised that was a thing they could do?” Asami nods knowingly, peering intently at the nugget, but Korra takes it back into her hands.

 

Again she bends - two pieces, two hooks, a simpler shape this time, more geometrical, though with no less detail.  

 

She closes them in her fist for a second before transferring them to Asami. “These -” she begins, and waits for Asami to take them in, wide green eyes equally as entranced as before, but also inquisitive.

 

“These are for you because,” Korra starts again, more tentative this time. “Well, they always remind me of you when I see them - I don’t think I’ve ever told you that. They were at the stall today.”

 

Asami clasps the two silver flowers between her fingers, each arrayed with at least thirty tiny petals, eager for the explanation.

 

“You brought me a bunch of these right before I left. A long time ago, I mean, when I left for the South Pole to recover. They grow on the Island - that’s probably all. I felt like shit, obviously, and you were trying to cheer me up. But they were very pretty, so many colours…”

 

Asami continues to smile, eyes shining, and Korra wonders if her face is starting to hurt.

 

“They’re called Yawen’s blossom. That’s the woman who first cultivated them for sale. I had a whole lot of nothing to do while I was down south and I think I was probably missing green… There was a book at Katara’s about floriculture that I must have read twice over, I think it belonged to Kya. Anyway, I read that this flower - a bouquet of these - basically means  _ I miss you. _ Like, you’re away from someone, but, um - you know, that you’re thinking about somebody and they’re not there… Well,” she giggles finally, at her own delicate recollection, Asami joining. “You know I did a bit of that! But reading that, it made me feel… I don’t know. Something good. I mean, I didn’t think you knew, but ever since…”

 

“I’ll get them again for you.” There's love tucked in all the corners of Asami's voice. She feels the silver in her hand again. “And I love these. I love you.”

 

She fishes into her pocket for her purse and carefully places the earrings inside - and once they’re stored away her arms wrap tight around Korra. Korra feels the tips of Asami’s fingers warm on her back, the heavenly contrast that all of Asami against her makes to the cooling air.   

 

“Oh, and you know,” she delivers her afterthought into Asami’s shoulder, “the book said dragonfly hummingbirds love that flower. They’re its main pollinators.”

 

Asami giggles her acknowledgement and says again, “I love you. Thank you.” And then laughs again. “How am I going to top this, Korra? I can’t metalbend.”

 

Korra scoffs through her own snort. “Uh, you'll probably manage, Miss Million Yuans A Month.” She squeezes her tighter, murmuring through a smile against the fabric of Asami's dress. “But you don’t have to, you know.” She feels Asami burrow back, almost absently. “You just have to be your perfect self.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't name many flowers (presumably they have strange/hybrid Avatar names that are diffuclt to devise) but they're all just descriptions of real flowers with those respective connotations. there's the stripy 'love and beauty'[orchid](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7v3fyQinyrU/UWNwiT1qe7I/AAAAAAAAC50/Jx8UJqIthl8/s1600/Phalaenopsis+Taida+King%2527s+Caroline.JPG), Asami buys [frangipani](http://media.buzzle.com/media/images-en/gallery/botany/flowers/450-492600997-white-frangipani.jpg), and the mixed [zinnia](http://www.brides.com/blogs/aisle-say/whimsical-bouquet-of-zinnias-500.jpg) that means 'I miss you'. Thanks for reading!


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